The Guy Who Couldn’t Be Bothered to Show Up

He was goofy looking and I might have just as easily hit x instead of heart. But something in his profile, I guess, or his smile, made me decide to take a chance.

He texted. We talked. We connected. He liked to talk on the phone.

He was smart, funny, direct and weird.

He would randomly say or text, “meow meow,” with no apparent context or explanation.

He had a deep, confident voice that didn’t quite match his goofy look. He had three PhD’s and was teaching at a small community college somewhere between Baton Rouge and New Orleans…in the middle of nowhere. Cancer alley, they call it.

He reminded me of Tim but less intense. He too, had been in the military and spoke of rigged systems and corruption and no one really knows what’s really going on. His facebook page had something about 9/11 theories.

But he seemed to be more light-hearted than Tim. He was fun. We had a lot in common. He was excited when I told him I was an atheist and when I said I was watching Band of Brothers he said, “I think I have a hard on,” which I found amusing.

He said he wanted to meet me. He was only an hour and a half drive away, but we had a series of miscommunications. I told him I was going to New Orleans with a friend. He didn’t take the bait. When I was in NOLA he said he wanted to see me. I invited him to join us the next day. That morning I dressed in a little skirt and some wedges in lieu of my converse. I made sure my hair and makeup looked nice all day. He bailed.

He suggested he could come to Lafayette that weekend. “I can get some Indian food,” he said. I thought he was asking me to dinner at the only Indian restaurant in town. I don’t like their food, so I tried to steer him to another restaurant.

“For Indian food?” he asked.

“No, not for Indian food.”

Turns out, he often came to Lafayette because he liked the north Indian fare at our only Indian restaurant. He was basically suggesting that we could meet while he ran an errand. I thought I was being asked out on a date.

Then he tried to get Amy and I to stop at a Starbucks at an outlet mall on the way home.

Amy was having none of this and I didn’t care for it either. Here I was in New Orleans and he wanted to meet at an outlet mall?

I was getting pissed. It seemed like he couldn’t be bothered to make any effort.

By the time I finally got back to Lafayette, when he called, I was pissy on the phone.

“What’s wrong? Are you ok?”

“Well, it just seems like first you were coming to New Orleans then you weren’t. Then you were coming to Lafayette, now you’re not.”

“Now everything is just awkward and weird,” he said.

After a few exchanged short phrases, he said, “I’m going jump in the shower.”

“Ok,” I said and hung up.

The next morning, I felt kinda stupid, so I texted him and apologized for making things weird. I told him I understood if he didn’t want to talk to me anymore. But if he did, I was up for it.

He immediately responded saying he had been thinking about me all night.

It was Saturday and Festival Acadien. I was waiting for a guest to vacate my apartment so I went to the festival with Larry and the gang.

He called but I couldn’t hear him above the music. So I walked away and called him back. I laid down under a tree on campus between the park and my apartment.

We talked a long time. He talked about all the things he tells his students that have nothing to do with engineering. Like money isn’t real and religion is a ruse of control. I started giving my argument about how none of the world’s conflicts have ever really been about religion, but only about money, power and land.

He stopped me mid -sentence.

“Marie, I just have to tell you this. You have to go back to school and be a teacher. You have a gift for making an argument and backing it up with facts….not many people can do that. You were born to do this. You have to do it.” He went on for a while.

I was silent. It was both flattering and controlling at once. And I’ve heard this before. When I was at Tulane, my political science professor said something like that to me. “You have a responsibility to share this gift,” he had said. Or some such thing. I remember looking at him and saying, “I don’t know how. Tell me how.”

I still don’t know how.

But when I think about how low I felt when one of my bosses chastised me for my mishandling of the “no stroller” signs at our big fundraising event……I know I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing.

Back to goofy dude.

He spontaneously offered to come over that night. I said ok.

A few hours later he changed his mind.

“Let’s meet this week sometime and you can come with me to a wedding I have to go to next Saturday.”

He said he would come over Thursday, then changed his mind again.

“Come with me to the wedding,” he said.

“You really want our first meeting to be going to a wedding together?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said.

That Saturday I didn’t hear from him. Around 3pm (the wedding was at 6:30pm) I texted him, “So I guess you’re not coming to Lafayette.”

“Not sure.” he said.

Not sure? What the fuck?

“I see.” I answered.

A few hours later he texted, “Not going, watching auburn!”

Football. He’s fucking choosing football over me. I was furious and disappointed.

All that talk, all the flirting, the long conversations…..just wasted time because he couldn’t be bothered to drive to Lafayette in lieu of a fucking football game!